costly
/ˈkɒs(t)li
/adjective (costlier, costliest)
1Costing a lot; expensive: major problems requiring costly repairs...
- This scared her because she feared not following through might one day be costly in terms of her job.
- As in real life, a managerial appointment made in haste could end up being financially costly in the long run.
- Legal processes are costly in terms of both the fees and the management time involved.
Synonyms
expensive, dear, high-cost, high-priced, highly priced, big-budget, overpriced, exorbitant, extortionate, immoderate, extravagant;
lavish, rich, deluxe, choice, fine, exquisite;
valuable, priceless, worth its weight in gold, worth a king's ransom;
British upmarket, over the odds
informal steep, pricey
1.1Causing suffering, loss, or disadvantage: the government’s biggest and most costly mistake...
- This will teach him very early in life that some mistakes are costly and cannot afford to be made again.
- With hindsight it might have been a costly mistake but we put the education of our students first and foremost.
- It seems the council missed out on an opportunity and made a costly mistake.
Synonyms
catastrophic, ruinous, disastrous, calamitous, cataclysmic, devastating, crippling, crushing, fatal, lethal, damaging, harmful, injurious, deleterious, woeful, grievous, lamentable, dire, awful, terrible, unfortunate
literary direful
Derivatives
costliness
- Scarcity and resulting costliness confined its use chiefly to precious metalworking, where it was employed as a flux to cleanse surfaces of oxides and reduce melting temperatures to aid welding and soldering.
- The relative costliness of labor encouraged labor-saving mechanization; the scarcity of capital made it worthwhile to build machines cheaply and use them intensively.
- The goals of this program are to limit the frequency, severity and costliness of asthma exacerbations through extensive education of physicians, children and caregivers.